TENDERLAND

For companies across Mexico and wider Latin America, the challenge of differentiating your offer in a crowded marketplace has typically focused on branding bags of particular varieties, fruit sizes or sources with catchy names, designed to entice consumers to pick them up from shelves and displays.

Los Mochis, Sinaloa-based grower-exporter SL Produce decided to take a different approach. For many long-standing producers the length and breadth of Mexico, the concept of responsible – or sustainable – agriculture has taken on increasing importance over recent years in the face of not just consumer and retailer demands, but also the need to respond to the challenges posed by a changing climate.

These concerns have led to the birth of what the company believes is a new concept in brand marketing for produce, called Tenderland. The brand emphasizes care and respect for the land and the people that work it, as well as an exacting attention-to-detail, complete traceability and quality, which runs from planting through selection to final delivery.

The branded bags and packs, which feature green beans (conventional and organic), bell peppers, slicer cucumbers, sweet corn, and squash, will be supplied to retailers and foodservice customers across the U.S. and Canada with weekly deliveries and year-round availability.

Unlike many existing produce labels, Tenderland seeks to turn the focus on SL Produce’s responsible production methods and guarantee of dignified working conditions for employees, including housing and education.

It also marks the culmination of two decades of hard work for the grower-exporter.

More Than A Brand

A vertically integrated company, from fields to delivery, SL Produce uses state-of-the-art greenhouses for cultivation – in addition to open field production – followed by rigorous selection and packaging processes; all with the aim of delivering added value with its vegetables.

Its origins can be traced back to 2007 when founder Selman Tachna – a third-generation grower started his own green bean enterprise, SL Agrícola, with business partner Jorge Angulo. The name, incidentally, was taken from the initials of Tachna’s wife, Sandra Luz. Joinly, Selman Tachna and Jorge Angulo count on over 40 years’ experience in the produce industry.

The modern iteration of the company, SL Group, really came into being when the next generation – Jorge Angulo Jr, Luis Tachna and Selman Tachna Jr – entered the business.

According to SL Produce’s Marketing and PR Manager, Ivonne Lugo, the arrival of this fourth generation into the industry gave SL a huge injection of energy, bringing with it fresh ideas, a raft of new, enthusiastic recruits, and a more formal way of managing the company.

One of the first moves was to establish a new U.S.-based commercial import arm for SL Agrícola, called SL Produce. With locations in Nogales, AZ and McAllen, TX, SL Produce imports green beans, bell peppers, American slicer cucumbers, sweet corns and squash.

From this point onwards, SL Produce started to grow in leaps and bounds. Production was expanded across Mexico, east to Torreón, and south to Jalisco and central Guanajuato region. This growth in production was accompanied by greater production volumes and an increasing number of contacts signed for exports.

But while SL Produce may not be alone in being an ambitious company undergoing expansion, it has long been notable for its emphasis on social and agricultural responsibility.

“We have a very low turnover of workers,” explains Lugo. “Many of our employees have been working here for 20 or 30 years and the second generation has now joined them.

“What this means is we have a very solid stable base that allows us to concentrate on supplying very high quality products, and the gentleness with which we farm the land from seed to harvest is reflected in the results of our work – agricultural products full of life and taste.”